Re: [xmca] Dewey, culture, experience (w/o extra line breaks)

LIke Andy, I too am intrigued by some of the points Dewey makes in the
selections Tony provides, such as the one in Later Works Volume 1 page
363 which describes culture as including both the material and the
ideal, and where Dewey also revises his general concept of experience
to include culture.

Does anyone know where and in what context Dewey originally wrote this?

 From Tony:
"lw.1.363 It is a prime philosophical consideration that "culture"
includes the material and the ideal in their reciprocal
interrelationships and (in marked contrast with the prevailing use of
"experience") "culture" designates, also in their reciprocal
interconnections, that immense diversity of human affairs, interests,
concerns, values which compartmentalists pigeonhole under "religion"
"morals" "aesthetics" "politics" "economics" etc., etc. Instead of
separating, isolating and insulating the many aspects of a common
life, "culture" holds them together in their human and humanistic
unity--a service which "experience" has ceased to render. What
"experience" now fails to do and "culture" can successfully do for
philosophy is of utmost importance if philosophy is to be
comprehensive without becoming stagnant."

- Steve

On Nov 2, 2009, at 6:02 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:

> Thanks for that Tony. I am somewhat stunned also by the use of the
> words "culture" and "ideal" which is so consonant with CHAT. This is
> really great stuff.
>
> I have bought a couple of books of Dewey's work in the past, but I
> am always frustrated that I never find the material I am looking
> for. Which books should I acquire to read material like the excerpts
> you sent, and also Dewey's reflections on collective problem
> solving, group dynamics and so on? Or is there a big collected works
> which is affordable?
>
> Andy
>
> Tony Whitson wrote:
>> Here's the text again, without the extra line breaks:
>> lw.1.361 Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature
>> today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment
>> of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I
>> would abandon the term "experience" because of my growing
>> realization that the historical obstacles which prevented
>> understanding of my use of "experience" are, for all practical
>> purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term "culture"
>> because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully
>> and freely carry my philosophy of experience.
>> lw.1.361 I am not convinced that the task I undertook was
>> totally misguided. I still believe that on theoretical, as distinct
>> from historical, grounds there is much to be said in favor of using
>> "experience" to designate the inclusive subject-matter which
>> characteristically "modern" (post-medieval) philosophy breaks
>> [Page lw.1.362] up into the dualisms of subject and object, mind
>> and the world, psychological and physical. If "experience" is to
>> designate the inclusive subject-matter it must designate both what
>> is experienced and the ways of experiencing it.
>> lw.1.362 There is, assuredly, nothing novel in holding that
>> philosophy is distinguished from other intellectual or cognitive
>> undertakings by the comparative comprehensiveness of its subject-
>> matter; nor is it innovative to maintain that a linguistic
>> expression is needed to name philosophy's singular distinction. But
>> by an ironical twist of events which I failed to comprehend, the
>> theoretical grounds that can be cited for using "experience" as the
>> needed name are historically identical with the obstacles that
>> effectively stand in the way of the name being understood in the
>> senses I intended.
>> lw.1.362 The historical obstacles are now so conspicuous that I
>> can at times but wonder how they came to be overlooked. There was a
>> period in modern philosophy when the appeal to "experience" was a
>> thoroughly wholesome appeal to liberate philosophy from desiccated
>> abstractions. But I failed to appreciate the fact that subsequent
>> developments inside and outside of philosophy had corrupted and
>> destroyed the wholesomeness of the appeal--that "experience" had
>> become effectively identified with experiencing in the sense of the
>> psychological, and the psychological had become established as that
>> which is intrinsically psychical, mental, private. My insistence
>> that "experience" also designates what is experienced was a mere
>> ideological thundering in the Index for it ignored the ironical
>> twist which made this use of "experience" strange and
>> incomprehensible.
>> lw.1.362 The name "culture" in its anthropological (not its
>> Matthew Arnold) sense designates the vast range of things
>> experienced in an indefinite variety of ways. It possesses as a
>> name just that body of substantial references which "experience" as
>> a name has lost. It names artifacts which rank as "material" and
>> operations upon and with material things. The facts named by
>> "culture" also include the whole body of beliefs, attitudes,
>> dispositions which are scientific and "moral" and which as a matter
>> of cultural fact decide the specific uses to which the "material"
>> constituents of culture are put and which accordingly deserve,
>> philosophically speaking, the name "ideal" (even the name
>> "spiritual," if intelligibly used).
>> [Page lw.1.363]
>> lw.1.363 It is a prime philosophical consideration that
>> "culture" includes the material and the ideal in their reciprocal
>> interrelationships and (in marked contrast with the prevailing use
>> of "experience") "culture" designates, also in their reciprocal
>> interconnections, that immense diversity of human affairs,
>> interests, concerns, values which compartmentalists pigeonhole
>> under "religion" "morals" "aesthetics" "politics" "economics" etc.,
>> etc. Instead of separating, isolating and insulating the many
>> aspects of a common life, "culture" holds them together in their
>> human and humanistic unity--a service which "experience" has ceased
>> to render. What "experience" now fails to do and "culture" can
>> successfully do for philosophy is of utmost importance if
>> philosophy is to be comprehensive without becoming stagnant.»3
>> lw.1.363 Culture "comprises inherited artifacts, goods,
>> technical processes, ideas, habits, values. Social organization
>> cannot be really understood except as a part of culture." Even this
>> brief quotation indicates the inclusive or comprehensive
>> summarizing of the conditions and aspects of human life designated
>> by the word. Artifacts include habitations, temples and their
>> rituals, weapons, paraphernalia, tools, implements, means of
>> transportation, roads, clothing, decorations and ornamentations,
>> etc., etc. They, together with the technical processes involved in
>> their use, constitute the "material aspect of culture." But then
>> follows the significant statement: "The material equipment of
>> culture is not, however, a force in itself. Knowledge is necessary
>> in the production, management and use of artifacts . . . and is
>> essentially connected with mental and moral discipline, of which
>> religion, laws and ethical rules are the ultimate source. The
>> handling and possession of goods imply also the appreciation of
>> their value." The kind of cooperation involved in production of
>> goods and the common modes of enjoyment of the products "are always
>> based on a definite type of social organization." In short,
>> "material culture requires a complement . . . consisting of the
>> body of intellectual knowledge, of the system of moral, spiritual,
>> and economic values, of social organization and of language."
>> lw.1.363 The intimate connection of philosophical systems with
>> culture is further clarified by the fact that "the formation of
>> sentiments
>> [Page lw.1.364] and thus of values is always based on the cultural
>> apparatus in a society," the sentiments and values defining man's
>> attitudes "toward the realities of his magical, religious or
>> metaphysical Weltanschauung." And while I cannot dwell upon its
>> implications here, I cannot refrain from quoting the statement that
>> "Culture is at the same time psychological and collective."»4
>> Tony Whitson
>> UD School of Education
>> NEWARK DE 19716
>> twhitson@udel.edu
>> _______________________________
>> "those who fail to reread
>> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Received on Mon Nov 2 18:56:39 2009